


The Boy Without a Face

by counterheist



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Weird, floaty, open-ended, opinions expressed within may or may not line up with author's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-20
Updated: 2010-05-20
Packaged: 2017-11-28 16:49:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/676660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An island boy stops and thinks by a puddle on the road as the sun comes out again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boy Without a Face

It had rained before, a strange thing. It wasn’t the time for rain. It was never the time for rain. But the confusion brought on by the water from the sky had stilled as, sure enough, the sun had come out again, far too quickly, and Cyprus was left to stare into the shallow pools left behind.

The water was blue, pure and bright like the sea that surrounded him. Or maybe that was the sky. Of course. It had to be the sky, because the puddle was far too shallow to be that shade of life on its own. It should have been clear.

Many things should have been clear.

But instead of transparent the surface of the water was the sharp blue of the sea. With the light of the sun glaring down upon the dirt of his body, over everything, the little pool was like a mirror.

He could see clouds in it. And birds. It must be the sky.

Who owned the sky?

Some of his people liked to think that Greece did. The Other—no. No. Others of _Cyprus’s_ people liked to think that Turkey did ( _It wouldn’t surprise him if America started trying to sell parts of that beautiful blue_ ). Many others had tried to convince Cyprus that the sky belonged to them; England. Veneziano.

They all had failed, eventually.

Cyprus thought that if anyone owned anything it had to be the clouds. But that was fanciful and childish, and he was not exactly a child. Not truly. His governments had yet to understand that, and Cyprus knew they never would, given time. People didn’t last long enough to comprehend something like them; perhaps the first shimmer of awareness would enter a statesman’s eyes, or a bureaucrat’s heart, but by then those men were old or gone or dead or on the verge.

( _And I begin again anew. As I should be. As I am._ )

There was an Other in the back of Cyprus’s mind. He did not know how, but he knew it. In the same way that he knew when his people cried and when they laughed. And Cyprus knew, without a doubt, that sometimes _he_ was that Other too. Trapped in the back, caged and furious because his wishes were his people’s wishes and his people wanted _more_.

It was strange to think about; that he was someone completely different for half of his days. It should be thirty-seven percent of them. Based up land area controlled. Or even better, twenty percent for population demographics. Or best of all, _no time_ at all because Cyprus was _Cyprus_ , that was it.

( _Did **he** have these same thoughts?_ )

Cyprus was sure of it.

He looked down, into the puddle of water. If he strained his eyes ( _two could see out of them, and they saw very different things_ ), he could make out the rough grey stones of the road. The sky was just an illusion. The stones were real.

He’d rather look at the sky. He set his gaze across the water, at an angle, and the blue returned, magic. The sun did as well, bright hot, burning their eyes. His eyes. Cyprus looked away from it; it was too much.

But in doing so he caught sight of something else. Not the clouds, thin little wisps of a dream. Not the rocks, strong and worn. Cyprus saw himself in the mirror on the ground. He looked as he always did. Small. Reserved.

He might have risked a smile, but he knew that when he smiled, the Other smiled too. And Cyprus didn’t trust him when he smiled ( _His tricks are at their worst when he pretends to be calm like that, sir. Do not listen to his lies_ ).

And he couldn’t even see his face.

It meant he could have already been smiling. Was the Other grinning, deep inside? He wasn’t asleep, Cyprus knew that. Sleeping inside introduced the danger of never waking, and his people would not stand for such a crisis. Turkey would despise it. Greece would shout.

Cyprus sneaked another look at the sun, and then once more at himself. No change; the light was blinding, too bright for him to see. His outline was there, clear in the dream of the sky. But everything else was dark and murky stone.

He couldn’t see his face.

How then, could Cyprus know which of him was standing there?

Cyprus knew he shouldn’t know about the other him. But he did, and just the same he knew the Other knew of him too ( _as he should, because I am the truth!_ ). Did other nations feel this way? Did they _know_ about the lost states and swallowed empires hiding in the dregs of their memories? Even if they did, even if they’d known what two lives were like during strife, did they know what it was like to share? To always be aware of the outsider inside?

Greece didn’t. Neither did Turkey, England, Veneziano and so the list went on.

Cyprus and his Other knew ( _I know you and I am not afraid. We will persevere. We will win_ ).

They stood at the side of the road together as one, just a boy to some. Staring at the vanishing treasure on the ground. Loitering, wasting time, playing, living a child’s carefree life. To others Cyprus and his Other stood at the brink of a mess of paperwork, a custody case that shouldn’t be a custody case because they had acknowledged him as free decades ago. Tossed side to side, hand to hand before he could begin to form any proper concept of self, and now there were two selves that he didn’t want. But their hands were clean. They gave him their money and their tourists and their paper support. But what must he look like to the birds ( _A safe haven, a home?_ )? To the sky ( _Nothing. The sky cannot see_ )?

It was getting closer to midday. He had places to be and papers to sign. Perhaps even a meeting ( _Greece and Turkey both visited him often, these days_ ). With his Other’s schedule added on top of his own, Cyprus wouldn’t have time to rest for years. All the time he had was the rest of the day, beautiful and bright.

But that was the same for every nation; time was not an issue to them. Time was one of the few things that _wasn’t_ an issue.

Cyprus gave one last look to his image on the ground, to his indistinguishable features. And then he left. Thinking about _him_ did not solve anything, and it certainly didn’t run a clearly defined country.

He walked on towards the town, continuing the path he had paused earlier. In his right hand he held a bag full of European Union documents. Priceless diplomacy, in the arms of a boy barely old enough to walk on his own. His people probably thought it was schoolwork. Cyprus loved his people, but there were things they didn’t need to know about.

Like the Other.

Cyprus walked through the sunshine, and wondered.

( _His Other. Cyprus. What did **he** think about?_ )

**Author's Note:**

> This was a gift for one of the anons of the heist story ( _I left a bet about pagespace in one of my AN there, the result was this_ ) and I liked it enough to be willing to repost it/revise it if anybody's got any suggestions. The style is a bit more floaty than I'm used to, so yeah. Original notes:
> 
> Not exactly an OC, but really mostly an OC since we don’t know much about him. Them. I know that there was an independent design for Cyprus, and that he was supposed to be both older and TRNC’s brother. But I liked the idea of the two of them being the same person. Much like how I like the idea of nations going split personality during civil wars. If I need to be schooled on any facts, then drat, school me. For clarification: every italicized parenthetical statement was TRNC. How did I do? Does anyone out there have their own grip on Cyprus/TRNC? Oh, and my stats were rounded from the CIA World Factbook. Mmm, Googlesearch.


End file.
